Canola futures broke below their nearby trading range as a selloff in crude oil weighed on prices. While seasonal price trends point higher, direction will continue to come from developments in the Middle East.
Canola supplies for India and Japan are expected to remain relatively stable in the 2026/27 crop year, the United States Department of Agriculture said.
Phil Speiss of RBC Dominion Securities in Winnipeg believes canola could enter a bearish downturn, but the war in Iran and volatile oil prices are complicating matters.
More canola was crushed in February than a year ago, Statistics Canada reported on March 31. StatCan pegged last month’s domestic crush at 951,353 tonnes, up about 7.8 per cent from February 2025.
There’s more to canola futures on the Intercontinental Exchange than crude oil and vegetable oils prices, said David Derwin, commodity futures advisor for Ventum Financial in Winnipeg.
The speculative net long position in canola continues to grow, hitting its largest level in eight months according to the latest Commitments of Traders report from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released Friday, March 20.
As China heads into the 2026/27 marketing year, the United States Department of Agriculture attachés in Beijing projected a few minor to moderate changes in the country’s soybean, canola, corn and wheat crops.